Walker's $13M tops in WI recall campaign collections

MADISON — Wisconsinites on Monday got their most detailed look yet at the river of campaign cash flowing through the state.

Gov. Scott Walker has raised $13 million since Jan. 18, more than doubling the $12.1 million he raised last year.

“It’s a very, very short campaign, but yet huge amounts of money get spent, so I don’t know that anything would surprise me anymore,” said Mike McCabe, director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, a nonprofit that tracks campaign spending, speaking before the Walker campaign announced its totals.

With primaries on May 8, those involved in the upcoming recall elections of Walker, Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch and four state Republican senators have until midnight Monday to submit campaign finance reports to the Government Accountability Board, or GAB, the state election agency, detailing their campaign contributions and expenditures through April 23.

‘Grassroots’ cash

Walker’s fundraising prowess was a key question on experts’ minds.

State law allows politicians facing a recall effort to raise unlimited money until an election is ordered.

So, until the end of March, when GAB certified the drive to recall the embattled governor and called a June 5 general election, Walker’s campaign contributors could give him as much as they wanted — enabling, for example, Houston home builder Bob Perry to donate $500,000 to the Walker campaign.

“I’m sure (the Walker race is) going to dwarf other state elections” around the country, said national campaign finance expert Frank Askin, who teaches at Rutgers Law School in New Jersey.

Walker’s campaign said the governor’s record was driven in large part by strong grassroots’ support and “bold reforms.”

“Because of the overwhelming support for the governor, we can continue to speak to voters about how Gov. Walker plans to move Wisconsin forward, while Democrat opponents plan to take Wisconsin backwards to higher taxes, record job loss and massive deficits,” said Walker spokeswoman Ciara Matthews.

The $13 million came from a total of 125,926 contributions — 96,292 of those at $50 or less, representing 76.4 percent of the overall number of contributions, according to the campaign.

National appeal

America’s eyes have been trained on Wisconsin politics since February 2011, when Walker proposed systemic changes to collective bargaining for most of the state’s public union employees, including increased employee contributions to pension and health-care plans, and eliminatated collective bargaining for all but cost-of-living salary increases.

The upcoming recalls are just the latest chapter in that story.

Last summer’s recalls targeted nine state senators for their roles in the collective bargaining saga, three Democrats who left the state to stall a vote on Act 10, the collective bargaining bill. Two of six GOP senators lost their seats.

Candidates, political committees and interest groups spent $44 million in those nine races, according to the WDC.

In the latest money chase, Walker far outdistanced his potential Democratic challengers, but the front-runner Democrats raked in plenty of inside and outside money in their bid to knock out Walker.

“Wisconsin used to be known as one of the great clean money states,” said Jonathan Krasno, a campaign finance expert who teaches political science at Binghamton University in New York. “It’s no longer that. The system has really broken down now.”

Campaign reports weren’t due until midnight, but some details from campaigns and interest groups trickled in throughout Monday, with some candidates previewing their reports last week.

“It’s been an unbelievably successful showing of the strong grassroots movement my campaign has earned,” Falk said of her campaign collections thus far.

Barrett’s report detailed report was not available as of Monday evening.

‘Diminishing returns?’

Walker has a primary of his own, although his opponent, political activist Arthur Kohl-Riggs, has raised $2,045 — less than .015 percent of Walker’s haul.

Kohl-Riggs, though, has said he is not a “protest” or “fake” candidate like those the Republican Party of Wisconsin openly has fielded to run as Democrats to ensure that Democrats have a primary in each of the races.

Walker, as the person targeted by the recall effort, was the only gubernatorial candidate allowed to collect contributions above the state’s contribution caps, including a $10,000 limit on individuals contributing to a gubernatorial campaign.

That has enabled him to be on the airwaves for months touting the benefits of the reforms he has pushed.

Still, Krasno said, the law of diminishing returns is in play in politics.

“The first 10 times I see a commercial, maybe I’m moved by it,” he said. “But the next 100 times I see it? I’ve zoned out.”